Methods, Systems, and Computer Program Products for Mobile Network Subscriber Incentive Programs

ABSTRACT

A number of reward programs can be offered to subscribers of a mobile network as an incentive to use fewer allocated resources, rather than more. For example, in some embodiments, a subscriber may elect to participate in a reward program wherein a portion of the unused resources are used to determine a monetary amount to be returned to the subscriber at, for example, the end of a year. In some embodiments, a subscriber may elect to participate in a reward program wherein a portion of the unused resources (such as unused minutes under their plan) are used to offset the costs of “green programs”, which may be implemented by the operator of the network. In other words, the subscribers can be encouraged to use fewer resources by allowing a portion of those unused resources (in the form of for example, cash) to offset the cost of a program, which the subscriber believes provides some benefit. The reward programs offered may recognize any societal issue.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to the field of electroniccommunications.

BACKGROUND

It is known to provide incentive programs to consumers to encouragedesired behavior. For example, U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0135120entitled, “Method And System For Awarding Points to a Mobile DeviceSubscriber Based on Usage Time While At A Premature location discusseshow subscribers can be awarded frequent flier mileage points and/orother types of points based on cell phone usage times and/or mobiledevice usage time while at a particular predetermined location, such ason board a particular commercial carrier.

It is also known to solicit the donation of unused cell phones tocharitable organizations so that those unused phones may be recycled andutilized by other who may need cell phone service. One such organizationis known as Cell Phones for Soldiers, which is available on the Internetat URL:

-   cellphonesforsoldiers.com.

SUMMARY

A number of reward programs can be offered to subscribers of a mobilenetwork as an incentive to use fewer allocated resources, rather thanmore. For example, in some embodiments, a subscriber may elect toparticipate in a reward program wherein a portion of the unusedresources are used to determine a monetary amount to be returned to thesubscriber at, for example, the end of a year. In some embodiments, asubscriber may elect to participate in a reward program wherein aportion of the unused resources (such as unused minutes under theirplan) are used to offset the costs of “green programs”, which may beimplemented by the operator of the network. In other words, thesubscribers can be encouraged to use fewer resources by allowing aportion of those unused resources (in the form of, for example, cash) tooffset the cost of a program, which the subscriber believes providessome benefit. The reward programs offered may recognize any societalissue.

This description, be within the scope of the present invention, and beprotected by the accompanying claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a mobile communication networkserving subscribers having elected reward programs for participationaccording to embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a table showing an exemplary embodiment of an accountassociated with a subscriber having elected to participate in aplurality of reward programs including amounts calculated thereunderaccording to embodiments.

FIGS. 3-6 are flow charts which illustrate operations of systemsconfigured to administer subscriber elected reward programs in someembodiments.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram which illustrates processor circuitsconfigured to operate systems for reward programs in some embodiments.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying figures, in which embodiments of theinvention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in manyalternate forms and should not be construed as limited to theembodiments set forth herein. Like numbers refer to like elementsthroughout the description of the figures.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify thepresence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements,and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of oneor more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements,components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein the term “and/or”includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associatedlisted items.

It will be understood that, when an element is referred to as being“coupled” to another element, it can be directly coupled to the otherelement or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when anelement is referred to as being “directly coupled” to another element,there are no intervening elements present.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientificterms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by oneof ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will befurther understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly useddictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that isconsistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art andwill not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense expresslyso defined herein.

The present invention is described below with reference to diagrams(such as block diagrams and flowcharts) and/or operational illustrationsof methods, systems and computer program products according to someembodiments of the invention. It is to be understood that thefunctions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted inthe operational illustrations. For example, two blocks shown insuccession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or theblocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending uponthe functionality/acts involved.

The present invention may be embodied in hardware and/or in software(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) including acombination of both. For example, servers according to some embodimentsof the invention may be implemented as a processor circuit that operatesaccording to software executed by the processor circuit. Furthermore,the present invention may take the form of a computer program product ona computer-usable or computer-readable storage medium havingcomputer-usable or computer-readable program code embodied in the mediumfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system. In thecontext of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable mediummay be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, ortransport the program for use by or in connection with the instructionexecution system, apparatus, or device.

The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example butnot limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic,infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specificexamples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium wouldinclude the following: a portable computer diskette, a random accessmemory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmableread-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), and a portable compact discread-only memory (CD-ROM).

Computer program code or “code” for carrying out operations according tothe present invention may be written in an object oriented programminglanguage such as JAVA®, Smalltalk or C++, JavaScript, Visual Basic,TSQL, Perl, or in various other programming languages. Softwareembodiments of the present invention do not depend on implementationwith a particular programming language. Portions of the code may executeentirely on one or more systems utilized by an intermediary server.

The computer program code may be provided to a processor of a generalpurpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus as instructions to produce a machine, such that theinstructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus, create means for implementingthe functions specified in the block and/or flowchart block or blocks.

The computer code may be stored in a computer-readable memory that candirect a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus tofunction in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored inthe computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture includinginstruction means which implement the function specified in the blockdiagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks.

Embodiments can operate in a logically separated client side/serverside-computing environment, sometimes referred to hereinafter as aclient/server environment. The client/server environment is acomputational architecture that involves a client process (i.e., aclient) requesting feature from a server process (i.e., a server).

As described hereinbelow in greater detail, a number of reward programscan be offered to subscribers of a mobile network as an incentive to usefewer allocated resources, rather than more. For example, in someembodiments, a subscriber may elect to participate in a reward programwherein a portion of the unused resources (such as unused minutes undertheir plan) are used to offset the costs of “green programs”, which maybe implemented by the operator of the network. In other words, thesubscribers can be encouraged to use fewer resources by allowing aportion of those unused resources (in the form of, for example, cash) tooffset the cost of a program, which the subscriber believes providessome benefit. The reward programs offered can recognize any societalissue.

In still further embodiments, the reward program can be a charitablereward program wherein the determined amount of the subscriber's unusedresources is used to offset the cost incurred by the provider inproviding volunteers to the charitable organization. Further, thesubscriber may be motivated to use fewer mobile network resources bybeing offered the incentive to support a charitable effort.

In still further embodiments, the reward program can be a subscriberreward program wherein an amount associated with the unused portion ofthe allocated resources can be returned to the subscriber in the form ofcash credited to their account.

FIG. 1 is a diagram that illustrates a mobile cellular network 10(referred to herein sometimes as the “network”) that supportscommunications in which mobile terminals 20 a-d can be used. A network10 is commonly employed to provide voice, text, and data communicationsservices to the mobile terminals 20.

As used herein, a “mobile terminal” includes devices having receive andtransmit hardware capable of two-way communication over a two-waycommunication link such as those described herein in reference to thenetwork 10. Such mobile terminals may include cellular telephone orother communications devices with or without a multi-line display;Personal Communications System (PCS) terminals that may combine a voiceand data processing, facsimile and/or data communications capabilities;Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) that can include a radio frequencyreceiver and a pager, Internet/Intranet access, Web browser, organizer,calendar and/or a global positioning system (GPS) receiver; and/orconventional laptop and/or palmtop computers or other appliances, whichinclude a radio frequency receiver. As used herein, “mobile terminals”may be portable, transportable, installed in a vehicle (aeronautical,maritime, or land-based), or situated and/or configured to operatelocally and/or in a distributed fashion at any other location(s) onearth and/or in space.

The mobile terminals 20 a-d can communicate with each other and otherterminals, such as terminals 26, 28, via the network 10 and a PublicService Telephone Network (PSTN) 14. The mobile cellular telephonenetwork 10 is organized as cells 1-4 that collectively can provideservice to a geographic region. In particular, each of the cells canprovide service to associated sub-regions included in the geographicregion covered by the network 10. More or fewer cells can be included inthe network 10, and the coverage area for the cells 1-4 may overlap.Each of the cells 1-4 may include an associated base station 30 a-d. Thebase stations 30 a-d can provide wireless communications between eachother and the mobile terminals 20 a-d in the associated geographicregion to allow for communications between the mobile terminals 20 a-dand/or the terminals 26, 28 in the PSTN 14 via a Mobile Switching Center(MSC) 15.

Each of the base stations 30 a-d can transmit/receive data to/from themobile terminals 20 a-d over an associated control channel 22 a-d. Forexample, the base station 30 a in cell 1 can communicate with the mobileterminal 20 a over the control channel 22 a. The control channel 22 acan be used to page the mobile terminal 20 a in response to callsdirected thereto or to transmit traffic channel assignments to themobile terminal 20 a over which a call associated therewith is to beconducted. The control channels 22 a-d can be identified using controlchannel numbers or identifiers. For example, the mobile terminal 20 acan store a channel number that identifies control channel 22 a as thecontrol channel on which it is currently camping.

The network 10 also can be used to transmit/receive text messages. Themobile terminals can send/receive text messages, such as those commonlyreferred to as Short Message Service (SMS) or Enhanced Message Service(EMS) formatted messages, Multimedia Message Service (MMS), and/orSmartmessaging™ formatted messages. Other types of messages may be used.

As is known to those skilled in the art, SMS and EMS messages can betransmitted/received on digital networks, such as GSM networks, allowingrelatively small text messages (for example, 160 characters in size) tobe sent and received via the network operator's message center to themobile terminal 20, or from the Internet, using a so-called SMS (or EMS)“gateway.” For example, SMS has been implemented as a point-to-pointservice where an SMS message can be transmitted from one mobile terminalto another via a short message service center (SMSC), which can act as astore and forward system for the SMS messages. As used herein, the term“message” includes SMS type messages as well as any other type ofmessage that can be used in the type of mobile cellular networkdescribed herein, such as MMS.

The network 10 also can be used to provide the mobile terminals 20 withaccess to the Internet 30 via a gateway 32. The gateway 32 can allowaccess to, for example, pages served up by web servers, which can beviewed on screens of the mobile terminals 20.

An incentive program system 33 is coupled to the MSC 15 and/or to theInternet so that the subscriber may access an associated account toelect one or more incentive programs for participation. The system 33can also be configured to operate the incentive programs by, forexample, determining amounts to be provided the subscriber electedprograms based on the subscriber's usage and the predeterminedparameters of the particular incentive programs, as described herein.

FIG. 2 is a table which illustrates exemplary embodiments of thedetermination of amounts provided to reward programs elected by asubscriber. According to FIG. 2, the exemplary service plan associatedwith the subscriber provides mobile network resources as follows: 1,000minutes of talk time, 100 text messages, and 1 GB of data transfer. Thesubscriber's account is charged $100.00 per month under the serviceplan.

As further shown in FIG. 2, the subscriber's usage of the mobile networkresources described above totals 500 minutes of talk time, 50 textmessages, and 500 MB of data transfers. In other words, under theexemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the subscriber utilizes only halfof the mobile network resources allocated to the subscriber under theplan. Accordingly, a subscriber reward program elected by the subscribercan provide 1% of the unused portion of the mobile network resourcesmultiplied by the rate plan (i.e., $100 per month). As illustrated inFIG. 2, the subscriber may be awarded with a 50 cent credit toward theiroutstanding balance due under their plan based on the underutilizationof the mobile network resources allocated to the subscriber. In otherembodiments, the subscriber may be awarded with a check, for example,annually which totals the entire amounts accumulated under thesubscriber reward program.

As further illustrated in FIG. 2, if the subscriber elects toparticipate in a charitable reward program where the subscriber'sutilization of mobile network resourcing is as described above, thepercentage under the charitable reward program can be 2% multiplied bythe unused portion of the mobile network resources multiplied by theplan, to provide a credit of $1.00 to help offset the costs incurred bythe service provider by allowing employees to volunteer for charitablework during work hours.

As further illustrated in FIG. 2, if the subscriber elects toparticipate in a societal issue reward program (such as a programdesigned to offset the costs of replacing relatively low efficiencyequipment with relatively higher efficiency equipment) the percentagethereunder can be 3% which is multiplied by the unused portion of themobile network resources multiplied by the plan to provide a credit of$1.50 to help offset the costs of implementing the program. According,as illustrated in FIG. 2, the subscriber can be provided with anincentive to use fewer resources by appealing to the subscribersconcerns regarding, for example, charity and societal issues.

In some embodiments, a program office can be provided to manage whichreward programs are approved for election by the subscriber. Forexample, the program office can determine which societal issue rewardprograms are actually approved for election by the subscriber to insurethat the programs are in-keeping with management objectives. In someembodiments, an auditor office can be provided to audit the costsassociated with the reward programs, and to insure that the amountsgenerated by the subscribers' election of the program is actuallyallocated to offset the costs incurred by the service provider byallowing employees to volunteer for charitable work during work hours,in the case of a charitable reward program. In some embodiments, theauditor office can insure that the amounts generated by the subscribers'election of the program is actually allocated to offset the costsincurred in, for example, replacing relatively low efficiency equipmentwith relatively higher efficiency equipment, in the case of a societalissue reward program.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart that illustrates operations of systems used toadminister subscriber elected programs as part of an incentive system insome embodiments. According to FIG. 3, an unused portion of the mobilenetwork resources for a subscriber of the network is determined incomparison to the total resources allocated to the subscriber under thesubscriber service plan (Block 305).

Next, an amount is determined that is associated with the unused portionof the mobile network resources. In some embodiments, the amount isdetermined to be equivalent to some monetary amount. The amount is to beprovided to a subscriber' elected reward program designated by thesubscriber (Block 310). It will be understood that the subscriber canelect which programs he/she would like to participate in when theservice plan is initiated in or at anytime subsequent to initiation ofthe service plan, such as when new programs are introduced by theservice provider. Furthermore, it will be understood that the subscribercan elect more than one of reward programs in which to participate insome embodiments.

Referring to FIG. 3, the determined amount is provided to the subscriberelected program (Block 315). In some embodiments, the mobile networkresources on which the amount is determined can be an unused number ofminutes, an unused number of text messages, or an unused amount of datatransfers, each of which the subscriber is entitled to use under thesubscriber's service plan. Other types of resources can also be used.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart which illustrates operations of systems used toadminister subscriber reward programs described herein in someembodiments wherein the subscriber can be provided with a monetarycredit, such as in the form of a check, based on unused resources.According to FIG. 4, the unused resources allocated under the serviceplan are divided by a total number of resources including the serviceplan to provide an unused portion of the mobile network resources (Block405). In some embodiments, the unused resources can be determined bysubtracting the used resources from the total allocated resources underthe service plan. Other techniques can be used to determine the unusedresources.

Next, the unused portion of the mobile network resources is multipliedby a maximum reward percentage, and also multiplied by the service rateplan (i.e., such as $100.00 per a month) to determine the amount that isprovided to the subscriber elected program (Block 410).

FIG. 5 is a flow chart that illustrates operations of systems used toadminister a societal issue reward program in some embodiments.According to FIG. 5, the unused resources under the service plan isdivided by a total number of resources allocated to the subscriber underthe service plan to provide the unused portion (Block 505). Othertechniques can be used to determine the unused resources. Next, theunused portion is multiplied by a maximum societal issue percentage toprovide the amount with the societal issue reward program (Block 510).

FIG. 6 is a flow chart that illustrates operations of systems configuredto administer a charitable reward program in some embodiments. Accordingto FIG. 6, the unused resources included in the service plan is dividedby a total number of resources allocated to the subscriber under theservice plan to provide the unused portion (Block 605). Next, the unusedportion is multiplied by a maximum charitable reward percentage toprovide the amount to be divided to the charitable reward program (Block610).

FIG. 7 is a block diagram that illustrates systems configured to carryout operations described above according to some embodiments. Asillustrated, the incentive system server includes a processor circuit738, a memory 736 and input/output (I/O) circuits 746. The incentivesystem server may be incorporated in, for example, a general purposecomputer, server, or the like. The processor circuit 738 communicateswith the memory 736 via an address/data bus 748 and communicates withthe input/output circuits 746 via an address/data bus 749.

The incentive system server can be accessed by a subscriber via theInternet 30 through the input/output circuits 746 using, for example, anInternet Protocol (IP) connection. The subscriber can use the system toelect which reward programs to participate in. The system can also beconfigured to administer the reward programs to determine the amounts tobe credited to the reward programs based on the parameters determined,for example, in reference to FIGS. 2-6 herein.

The components in the incentive system server may be known componentssuch as those used in many data processing systems, which may beconfigured to operate as described herein. In particular, the processorcircuit 738 can be any commercially available or custom microprocessor,microcontroller, digital signal processor or the like. The memory 736may include any memory devices containing the software and data used toimplement the functionality circuits or modules used in accordance withembodiments of the present invention. The memory 736 can include, but isnot limited to, the following types of devices: cache, ROM, PROM, EPROM,EEPROM, flash memory, SRAM, DRAM and magnetic disk.

As further illustrated in FIG. 7, the memory 736 may include severalcategories of software to provide operation of the incentive systemserver: an operating system 752; application programs 754 including thesoftware to provide the operations of the reward programs describedherein, input/output device drivers 758; and data 756,

The data 756 represents the static and dynamic data used by theapplication programs 754, the operating system 752, and the input/outputdevice drivers 758, that may reside in the memory 736. The data 756 caninclude the maximum award percentages described herein.

As will be appreciated by those of skill in the art, the operatingsystem 752 may be any operating system suitable for use with a dataprocessing system, such as OS/2, AIX or zOS from International BusinessMachines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y., Windows 95, Windows98, Windows2000,WindowsXP, Vista from Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash., Unix orLinux.

The input/output device drivers 758 typically include software routinesaccessed through the operating system 752 by the application programs754 to communicate with devices such as the input/output circuits 746and the memory 736.

As described herein, a number of reward programs can be offered tosubscribers of a mobile network as an incentive to use fewer allocatedresources, rather than more. For example, in some embodiments, asubscriber may elect to participate in a reward program wherein aportion of the unused resources (such as unused minutes under theirplan) are used to offset the costs of “green programs”, which may beimplemented by the operator of the network. In other words, thesubscribers can be encouraged to use fewer resources by allowing aportion of those unused resources (in the form of, for example, cash) tooffset the cost of a program, which the subscriber believes providessome benefit. The reward programs offered can recognize any societalissue.

In the drawings and specification, there have been disclosed embodimentsof the invention and, although specific terms are employed, they areused in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes oflimitation, the scope of the invention being set forth in the followingclaims.

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: providing, by a processor,a plurality of incentive programs for a subscriber to a service planassociated with a mobile communications network having mobile networkresources, wherein the mobile network resources include at least one ofmessages and data units; receiving, by the processor, an election of anincentive program among the plurality of incentive programs forparticipation by the subscriber, yielding an elected incentive program;determining, by the processor, an unused portion of the mobile networkresources; determining, by the processor, a value associated with theunused portion of mobile network resources; crediting the value to theelected incentive program; and offsetting costs incurred by a providerof the mobile communications network associated with the electedincentive program.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality ofincentive programs is selected from a group comprising a subscriberreward program, a societal issue reward program, and a charitableorganization reward program.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein thesubscriber elected program comprises a charitable organization rewardprogram, and wherein the method further comprises crediting an accountassociated with a provider of the mobile network with the value.
 4. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the subscriber elected program comprises asocietal issue reward program, and wherein the method further comprisescrediting an account associated with a provider of the mobile networkwith the value.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the mobile networkresources further comprise time allocated for calls by the subscriber.6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the value associated withthe unused portion of the mobile network resources comprises: dividingunused resources allocated to the subscriber by an amount of totalresources allocated to the subscriber to yield the unused portion; andmultiplying a maximum reward percentage by the unused portion to yieldthe value.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the unused portion of themobile network resources is determined at completion of a billing cyclefor the service plan.
 8. A system, comprising: a processor; and a memoryhaving computer-readable instructions stored thereon which, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to perform operationscomprising: providing a plurality of incentive programs for a subscriberto a service plan associated with a mobile communications network havingmobile network resources, wherein the mobile network resources includeat least one of messages and data units; receiving an election of anincentive program among the plurality of incentive programs forparticipation by the subscriber, yielding an elected incentive program;determining an unused portion of the mobile network resources;determining a value associated with the unused portion of mobile networkresources; crediting the value to the elected incentive program; andoffsetting costs incurred by a provider of the mobile communicationsnetwork associated with the elected incentive program.
 9. The system ofclaim 8, wherein the plurality of incentive programs is selected from agroup comprising a subscriber reward program, a societal issue rewardprogram, and a charitable organization reward program.
 10. The system ofclaim 8, wherein the subscriber elected program comprises a charitableorganization reward program, and wherein the operations further comprisecrediting an account associated with a provider of the mobile networkwith the value.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein the subscriberelected program comprises a societal issue reward program, and whereinthe operations further comprise crediting an account associated with aprovider of the mobile network with the value.
 12. The system of claim8, wherein the mobile network resources further comprise time allocatedfor calls by the subscriber.
 13. The system of claim 8, whereindetermining the value associated with the unused portion of the mobilenetwork resources comprises: dividing unused resources allocated to thesubscriber by an amount of total resources allocated to the subscriberto yield the unused portion; and multiplying a maximum reward percentageby the unused portion to yield the value.
 14. The system of claim 8,wherein the unused portion of the mobile network resources is determinedat completion of a billing cycle for the service plan.
 15. Anon-transitory computer-readable storage device comprisingcomputer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor,cause the processor to perform operations comprising: providing aplurality of incentive programs for a subscriber to a service planassociated with a mobile communications network having mobile networkresources, wherein the mobile network resources include at least one ofmessages and data units; receiving an election of an incentive programamong the plurality of incentive programs for participation by thesubscriber, yielding an elected incentive program; determining an unusedportion of the mobile network resources; determining a value associatedwith the unused portion of mobile network resources; crediting the valueto the elected incentive program; and offsetting costs incurred by aprovider of the mobile communications network associated with theelected incentive program.
 16. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage device of claim 15, wherein the subscriber elected programcomprises a charitable organization reward program, and wherein theoperations further comprise crediting an account associated with aprovider of the mobile network with the value.
 17. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the subscriberelected program comprises a societal issue reward program, and whereinthe operations further comprise crediting an account associated with aprovider of the mobile network with the value.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the mobile networkresources further comprise time allocated for calls by the subscriber.19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage device of claim 15,wherein determining the value associated with the unused portion of themobile network resources comprises: dividing unused resources allocatedto the subscriber by an amount of total resources allocated to thesubscriber to yield the unused portion; and multiplying a maximum rewardpercentage by the unused portion to yield the value.
 20. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage device of claim 19, wherein theunused portion of the mobile network resources is determined atcompletion of a billing cycle for the service plan.